Kingswood

About Kingswood

Thunderous serpentine space-rock and smouldering falsetto R'nB. Stadium supports for Aerosmith and AC/DC and earnest covers of Destiny's Child and First Aid Kit. Fly-by-night gigs in war-torn Afghanistan and recurring religious pilgrimages to the wood-grained heart of Nashville.

Welcome to the world of Kingswood. Don’t be confused by the veneer. Like the iconic Aussie car of the same name, it's all about what's under the hood. "We wanted to make something that would rival Abbey Road," guitarist Alex Laska told Rolling Stone magazine in the throes of their second album, After Hours, Close to Dawn. "I know it sounds insane but if you don't strive for that kind of thing, what are you doing? Seriously, what are you doing?"

The goal posts refuse to yield on the Melbourne rock quartet's third album, currently under construction across four studios in Sydney and Nashville. The first taste, Messed It Up — all sinewy synth-soul compulsion with a restless rock undertow — presages another stunning act of evolution.

"We're a band that, in a philosophical way, wants to continue to change," says singer Fergus Linacre. "We don't want to make the same record twice and the support we’ve received so far has made us realise that we actually can do whatever we want. It's a great position to be in."

OK, let's back up here...

It's six years since Kingswood first crashed the teeming Australian touring circuit, raising the stakes for iconic headliners as diverse as the Saints and the Living End with balls-out and belching rock singles like Medusa, She's My Baby, Sucker Punch and Ohio.

Their debut album, an electrifying act of hard rock sophistication called Microscopic Wars, was made at Nashville's Blackbird Studio with multi-Grammy-winner Vance Powell (Jack White, Arctic Monkeys, Kings of Leon). It made directly for the Top 10 in 2014, followed by nomination for that year's Best Rock Album at the annual ARIA Awards.

"In the early days we were like a Led Zeppelin tribute band," Laska recalled with amusement at the time, reflecting on how far they'd already come before adding, tellingly: "one of our first projections was to be respected by other musicians." It took that kind of ambition to follow up with 2016's After Hours, Close to Dawn: an exquisitely soulful departure that opened with a 4am piano ballad titled Looking For Love and peaked with the creamy electric piano and jazz harmonies of Golden, the band's biggest hit to date.

So radical was the reinvention that Kingswood's own record company thought they were being punked on first playback. Their fans, meanwhile, held fast and multiplied as bi annual appearances at Aussie uber-festival Splendour in the Grass escalated from rookie adrenaline rush to confetti-canon ecstasy.

And so to 2018, and a highly anticipated debut appearance at Mondo NYC in early October in New York City, followed by extensive touring (watch this space) through the US and Europe.

Nashville, says Alex "is kinda magical for us. It's this unique community of creative people, great resources and facilities and opportunities and whether it be people, gear, instruments, knowledge, atmosphere... it's just all there 24/7 and we find it all incredibly inspiring."

"We're doing this super hi-fi and the songs have gone over really well live," Fergus says of the new material. "As writers we’ve reached the point where we don’t do album tracks; we don’t do B-sides. Every song is special and we give it everything. I think this record is going to sound amazing.”

"For me, it sounds like Michael Jackson meets the future," he says. "It's an amalgam of that kind of creative energy and the sounds of now." Alex doesn't disagree. "We hear a lot of 'Oh, rock's dead,' these days and OK, yeah, maybe in its classic form it is, but the spirit of rock is not dead," he says.

"Rock'n'roll is far more an attitude than it is a style. I feel like if we can take rock'n'roll into the future wrapped in this modern sensibility we've accumulated though the '90s — hip-hop culture, A Tribe Called Quest, Lupe Fiasco — I mean, that's a pretty exciting prospect.

"For us, this is a new phase again," he says. And he fully expects the Kingswood faithful to embrace it. "I think people respect how earnest it is. You can sense disingenuousness. I think people can tell that we're making music we love. When you get up in front of a crowd, I think that's the quality people respond to."

Videos

Kingswood News

Kingswood will round out 2017 in spectacular style, with a mammoth national tour that sees them landing all over this wide and wonderful land and will be the first time new tracks from their latest LP, After Hours, Close To Dawn will have been played live in some of these areas. After Hours, Close […]

Tash Sultana has come in at #3 in the Hottest 100 with her hit Jungle, with over 2.2 million votes cast this is a massive result for the Melbourne multi instrumentalist. The triple j unearthed artist of the year also had her single Notion also came in at number 32. It’s been a career […]

Powerhouse rockers KINGSWOOD today confirm the details for their second studio album After Hours, Close To Dawn, set for release in Australia on March 3, 2017 via Dew Process. The band also announce they will be heading out across the country for their national album tour throughout March and April next year. The fourteen-date After […]

ARIA-nominated, Melbourne rockers KINGSWOOD, known for their signature rock ’n’ roll swagger and unstoppable quest for greatness, today announce a string of nation-wide headline tour dates beginning November 2016. The tour will take in nine shows across five states, including up close and personal capital city venues, as well as off the beaten track regional club […]

Promoter Garry Van Egmond announced today that critically acclaimed Swedish rock band The Hives and Australia’s own Kingswood will join AC/DC’s ROCK OR BUST Australia Tour as special guests in one of the most coveted guest spots in the country. Following on from the release of their worldwide Number One album ‘Rock Or Bust’, AC/DC […]